POOLE pulled off a remarkable series of results to lead the medals table by a big margin after the first weekend of the South West Age Group Championships.

The club’s juniors left Millfield with 10 gold, five silver and four bronze medals plus 18 other final placings.

No other club won more than six golds, while national big-hitters Plymouth Leander and Millfield managed only four and one gold respectively.

Poole also have most medals overall – 19 – ahead of the concluding sessions this weekend.

In the context of Dorset swimming, Poole’s results are hardly short of sensational and have rarely been matched even by Ferndown Otters or Bournemouth Dolphins in their heydays.

Poole’s spectacular resurgence under coach Robin Armayan is reminiscent of the progress made by Dolphins under Graham Bassi a few years ago – except that the Frenchman started from a much lower base.

When he arrived in 2008, Poole had just six regional and no national qualifiers. This year there are 31 regional and, including relay swimmers, 13 national qualifiers.

Poole’s ultimate highlights were the thrilling 4x100m freestyle and medley relay wins by the boys’ team of Todd Price, Dan Monk, Alan Wong and Dan Speers.

The West’s 12 leading clubs were left in their wake as they won the freestyle by almost two seconds in 3:52.85 and the medley by 1.16sec in 4:19.30 with only Millfield within eight seconds of them.

The times rank them second and third in Britain and set them up for a tilt at relay medals in the national age groups in Sheffield next month.

Splits were – Freestyle: Price 57.22, Monk 1:00.72, Wong 58.89, Speers 56.02. Medley: Wong (back) 1:05.77, Speers (breast) 1:12.40, Price (fly) 1:01.68, Monk (free) 59.45.

Armayan said: “It was a great weekend – unbelievable really. And the relays were so exciting. But we’ll have to do even better to win gold in Sheffield. We are studying videos and can already see things to improve.”

Poole’s girls’ team of Emily Clarke, Sophie Eaton, Maddy Kemp and Jade Norman also qualified for the nationals with their sixth place in the medley relay, which ranks them 24th in Britain.

Three of the boys’ relay quartet also struck indvidual gold and added to their national qualifying times (NQTs).

Speers was 1.24sec ahead in the 14yrs 100m freestyle in 56.11 despite being one of the youngest in the race. He also took bronze in the 200m breaststroke (2:33.39).

Wong won gold in the 13yrs 100m backstroke in 1:05.59 and bronze in the 100m freestyle (59.37) while Price came first in the 14yrs 400m freestyle in 4:21.11 and third in the 200m butterfly (2:22.50).

Lewis Harding contributed two golds to the tally as he won the 10yrs 100m freestyle in 1:08.96 and led a Poole one-two in the 100m backstroke as he and Jacob Peters took gold and silver in 1:18.64 and 1:19.48.

Peters in turn made the top step of the podium in the 10yrs 200m butterfly (1:23.21) and collected a second silver in the 400m freestyle (5:23.42).

Harry Kemp, who already has nine national times, won four medals from four swims – gold in the 11yrs 400m freestyle (4:59.41), silver in the 100m freestyle (1:06.23) and 200m butterfly (2:48.70) and bronze in the 200m breaststroke (3:10.20).

Georga Harrison and Jessica Richens turned the 11yrs 200m butterfly final into an in-house thriller as they won gold and silver respectively in 2:51.15 and 2:51.26.

Christchurch Seagulls also had a fine weekend with two golds among their seven medals and six other final placings.

Christian Tai won at least one medal of each colour as he came first in the 10yrs 200m breaststroke (3:26.13), second to Peters in the 200m fly (2:56.59) and third in the 100 and 400m freestyle (1:12.24 and 5:30.41).

Andrew Botros won gold in the 12yrs 200m butterfly (2:31.57) and bronze in the 400m freestyle (4:51.69) while team-mate Zoe Gannaway took bronze in the 10yrs 100m freestyle (1:11.38).

Other finalists – Poole: 10yrs Jacob Peters 5th 100m free; Lewis Harding 4th 400m freestyle; Kelvin Wong 6th 100m back. 11yrs Georga Harrison 6th 400m free; Jessica Richens 7th 200m breast. 12yrs Maddy Kemp 4th 200m fly, 5th 100m free, 5th 200m breast; Kiran Olenicz 7th 100m back; Alex Price 6th 200m breast. 13yrs Emily Clarke 5th 200m back, 6th 200m fly, 6th 400m free. 14yrs Todd Price 5th 100m back, 6th 100m free; Dan Speers 4th 400m free.

Seagulls: 10yrs Christian Tai 8th 100m back; Zoe Gannaway 4th 400m free. 13yrs Ben Wickens 6th 200m breast. 14yrs Peter Griffiths 8th 400m freestyle.